Open Thread………………………………………..Tuesday, February 19
February 19th, 2013
The wolf is not too far off from being man’s best friend. Wolves were listed as endangered species in 1973 and were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and Idaho.
Beginning in 2011, the federal government turned wolf management back over to individual states. Now the wolves are being hunted. It remains to be seen what their fate will be.
Categories: General
Daylight Savings Time begins next Sunday at 2 am. March 10
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/03/virginia-really-independent
Darn, and just when I’m thinking I’m part of Bill Bolling’s inner circle,
apparently thousands of folks got the same e-mail from him last
week. T-Mc also e-mailed – asking for $. Zip from Cooch – so far.
Thank goodness the cooch hasn’t asked *ME* for money.
Corey has and it nearly killed me off. What I really resent it the fact that I have written to Corey as a constituent, never as a supporter. Yet he feels free to add my name to his contact list to solicit funds from. That is just wrong.
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/03/virginia-ready-independent
I have a new cat grandson named Brooksy. Oh joy.
‘Oh. Is that part of the deal?’
At Kan. airport, fliers back sequester cuts . . . but, wait, they’re closing the control tower?
By Stephanie McCrummen, Published: March 2
GARDEN CITY, Kan. — The federal budget cuts were still an abstraction as American Eagle Flight 3429 crossed the snow-crusted plains into southwestern Kansas. Kevin Colvin, a construction manager flying in for work, looked out of the window at the tiny airport below.
“They make it sound like, ‘Oh my God! We’re going to die if we make these cuts!’ ” he said, eating a potato chip, the cuts still two days away. “I think it’s a bunch of BS.”
The cuts came into clearer focus Thursday. Garden City Regional Airport would lose its air traffic controllers, saving the federal government $318,756 and leaving pilots to handle landings, takeoffs and weather conditions mostly by themselves.
“Oh,” said Dave Unruh, a retired farmer who heard the news as he waited for a flight to Dallas. “Is that part of the deal?”
By Friday, people in this solidly conservative area faced the reality that it was.
“Great!” said Terryl Spiker, a rancher and banker catching the 2 p.m. American Eagle out for the weekend. He crossed his arms over his flannel shirt and smiled. “Just cut a little more.”
As sequestration dawned, reactions in Kansas’s 1st Congressional District ranged from disbelief to concern to a kind of defiant joy that the $85 billion in mandatory spending cuts had arrived at last. In the 2012 House elections, voters here overwhelmingly backed tea party conservative Tim Huelskamp, who recently hailed sequestration as “the first significant tea party victory” in Washington.
Not everyone here sees it that way. Mayor David Crase and airport director Rachelle Powell spent last week writing letters to Huelskamp and other elected officials urging them to save Garden City’s tower, one of 238 at relatively small airports across the country set to close beginning April 1. Crase said the closure would “undo years of investments” at the local, state and federal level. Powell warned of a decline in flights and associated revenue from fuel or fees or dinners at the popular restaurant Napoli’s at the Flight Deck. Though it was too soon to know, she worried that American Eagle might curtail the only regional jet service in and out of southwestern Kansas — a constellation of gridded towns that dissolve into farm fields and ranches and some of the largest meatpacking plants in the world.
Mostly, Powell was worried about what she described as “a severe negative impact” on airport safety. While the early and late American Eagle flights take off and land at a time when the tower is closed, Powell said, air traffic controllers guide the two afternoon flights, along with occasional military jet training runs, medical evacuation flights, casino charters and private jets that have delivered people such as Dick Cheney, Harrison Ford and Huelskamp himself to the high plains.
If the tower is eliminated completely, those responsibilities revert to pilots, who must communicate among themselves to coordinate landings, takeoffs and emergency responses.
“http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/at-kan-airport-fliers-back-sequester-cuts—-but-wait-theyre-closing-the-control-tower/2013/03/02/6cdb93c0-82c0-11e2-8074-b26a871b165a_story.html?tid=ts_carousel”
Looks like middle America is going to find out what small government really looks like. Bwahahahaha! Hope them pilots know what they are doing.
@Moon-howler
Why not have it all year round?
Rachel Maddow had an interesting interview with Sandra Day O’Connor tonight.
She has a new book coming out.
Hennety, on the other hand, interviewed “sweet” Alan West from Florida!
Gag! re Hannity and Alan West.
I saw Rachel early this morning. I have always liked Sandra Day O’Connor.
Moon, got my 2013 PWC Real Estate Assessment in the mail today. How ’bout you?
Got that rack slow cooking for you and the Mr.
That was one fine rack of ribs, Ms. Lafayette. Thank you so much. You need to put those on your catering truck.